92 missile officers now implicated in cheating

Thursday

Jan 30, 2014 at 12:01 AMJan 31, 2014 at 1:57 PM

WASHINGTON - Just over half of the 183 nuclear-missile launch officers at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana have been implicated in a widening exam-cheating scandal, the Air Force said yesterday, acknowledging it had "systemic" problem within its ranks.

WASHINGTON — Just over half of the 183 nuclear-missile launch officers at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana have been implicated in a widening exam-cheating scandal, the Air Force said yesterday, acknowledging it had “systemic” problem within its ranks.

The cheating was discovered during an investigation into illegal drug possession among airmen, when test answers were found in a text message on one missile-launch officer’s cellphone. The Air Force initially said 34 officers either knew about the cheating or cheated themselves.

But Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told a Pentagon news conference yesterday that the total number of implicated officers had grown to 92, all of them at Malmstrom, one of three nuclear-missile wings overseeing America’s 450 inter-continental missiles, or ICBMs.

“I believe now that we do have systemic problems within the force,” James said. “We do have systemic issues out there, and we need to address this holistically.

James expressed confidence in the safety of America’s nuclear arsenal, despite the scandal, saying that there are multiple checks to ensure that nuclear-launch officers know how to do their jobs. She said the entire force has been retested.

But she also said that all 92 implicated officers had been decertified and pulled from their missile duties. The Air Force said that meant remaining launch officers are doing extra shifts, and officers with the missile-launch backgrounds are being pulled from other assignments to supplement the force.

“I’ll tell you right up front, there’s been no operational impact, and we do not see an operational impact in the mission at Malmstrom Air Force Base,“ said Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson, the head of the Air Force’s Global Strike Command.

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